The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld President Donald Trumpís travel ban, a major victory in the administrationís quest to restrict the flow of immigrants and visitors into the United States.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices affirmed the presidentís vast powers over matters of national security ó even as they grappled with Trumpís anti-Muslim statements and the intent behind the controversial policy.

In the decision, the court formally overturned Korematsu v. United States, a 1944 Supreme Court case that upheld the forced relocation of Japanese immigrants into internment camps during World War II.

ďKorematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, andóto be clearó Ďhas no place in law under the Constitution,íĒ Roberts wrote.

Other articles I've read note that this part of the ruling -- being more of a comment on Sotomayer's dissent than on the case itself -- does not in itself have the force of law, as it is not a "necessary" part of the decision. However, with it on record, it would be highly likely to influence any future rulings in similar cases - in addition to being symbolically important.

The ruling of course doesn't change the fact that the ban is a stupid policy that will adversely affect many people and do little if anything to protect against terrorists entering the country.

It is somewhat contradictory that in the middle of such a seeming bigoted decision they included a reversal of the Korematsu v. United States decision that supported the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It's seems to be one hand giveth and the other hand taketh away.

It seems to me that they may be trying to say, 'See, we're not bigots! Look, we'll overturn one xenophobic decision to prove it!'

-- problem is, of course, it doesn't prove any such thing. (Not that that's the only problem, either.)

I have some faint hope that if Trump now tries to expand the ban to other Muslim-majority countries -- which is where I think he and Bannon were headed in the first place -- the Court may have second thoughts. However, Trump etc. might well just mix in some non-Muslim-majority countries most of whose inhabitants have dark skin.

Vote, people, vote. Every (legal) chance you get. We'll be stuck with this court for a while; but there are things the legislative branch can do in the meantime.

The ban does now include two non-Muslim majority countries --North Korea and Venezuela.

The opinion basically seems to be saying that "We're not saying that this is a good policy, or that the President might not be doing it for the wrong reasons. [Justice Kennedy, while voting with the majority, penned an opinion that seemed to be saying that while Trump's anti-Muslim remarks may not have made his order illegal, that doesn't mean he still shouldn't have made them.] We're saying he has the statutory authority to issue and enforce this order." Congress apparently did pass a law at some point saying that the president can bar immigrants at his discretion if he judges them to be a national security issue; on the other hand, there are laws saying that no one can be denied a visa for reasons such as race, religion, or national origin. Apparently the court is saying that in this case, the former outweighs the latter.

I believe there's another suit still being litigated saying that the order is in contravention to some of our laws (or possibly treaty obligations) regarding refugees, so this may not be the absolute final word.

The ban does now include two non-Muslim majority countries --North Korea and Venezuela.

It kind of feels like they threw North Korea and Venezuela into the most recent version just so they could say "See, it's not a Muslim ban!" Putting North Korea on the list almost seems moot; as far as I know the NK government doesn't allow ordinary citizens to leave the country anyway, although of course some have managed to get out.

The ban does now include two non-Muslim majority countries --North Korea and Venezuela.

I know (I don't know whether you thought that I didn't.) They seemed to a lot of people, me included, to have been added in specifically so the defenders could point that out in court.

The Venezuela ban applies only to government officials and their families. The North Korea ban -- how many people manage to try to get here from North Korea in the first place? It's kind of like banning icicles in the open in Death Valley in midsummer, isn't it?

A curious thing regarding the list: while most people associate Muslims with the Middle East, in actuality the country with the largest Muslim population isnít any of those countries in the Middle East. The country with the largest Muslim population is Indonesia. If the Islamic faith was inherently violent, there should be so much chaos facing Indonesia that it should make Syria look like Switzerland in comparison. Yet for the most part, the problems facing Indonesia are pretty much the ones facing any developed nation: growing population, shrinking amount of resources, that sort of thing.

Muslims also make up an estimated 1.6 billion or 23% of the global population, making them the second largest religious group, beaten only by Christianity.

I donít know if any of these numbers tie into the discussion at hand. Itís just some factoids Iíve collected, because one of my many pet peeves, is how Islamophobes act like Islam is some crazy offshoot sect with a population in the thousands at the most, completely underestimating the size and scope of the faith. I use these stats as a reminder of just how massive a genocide the Islamophobes hunger for, though even if the Islamic faith consisted of 100 guys who live in Hoboken, it would still be wrong to kill them solely for being Muslims.

The Indonesia stats also served as a reminder that while people use the words ďArabĒ and ďMuslimĒ interchangeably, one is a racial term, while the other is a religious one. You can be an Arab without being a Muslim and you can be a Muslim without being an Arab.

The Indonesia stats also served as a reminder that while people use the words ďArabĒ and ďMuslimĒ interchangeably, one is a racial term, while the other is a religious one. You can be an Arab without being a Muslim and you can be a Muslim without being an Arab.

But, yeah. Given their numbers, if all the Muslims in the world were terrorists, the rest of us would have been dead a long time ago.

Along with most of the Muslims; considering that they're far from a unified group. (Also considering that terrorists gotta terror, so if they start running out of members of Outgroup -- and usually long before they do so -- terrorists of any brand generally start declaring portions of the previous Ingroup to be Outgroup.)

I often wonder why Indonesia is never on the list banned countries. Isn't Bosnia a majority-Muslim as well? I'm thinking that the countries on the list are those with a whole lot of terrorist punks, but with President Piece of Work, who knows?
Slight hijack, but I really feel for those Muslims in the Middle East who just want to practice their faith as they see fit, but cannot because some wacko group thinks their prayer rug is the wrong color (based on some obscure verse from the Koran that they've folded, spindled and mutilated) and therefore They Must Die.

Yeah, you'd think we'd be happy to welcome anyone who actually managed to make it out of North Korea. (Well, maybe not since Trump met with Kim and everything between us is all hunky-dory now. )

That does seem weird. At one time, as you say, the USA was keen to welcome defectors from North Korea and other similar regimes (back when there were more of them), because it showed the superior freedom of the West and so on. Whereas you could almost see Trump's ban as something to discourage defectors and back up Kim... in fact it's quite hard not to see it as something designed to discourage people from trying to get out of North Korea. I suppose the bit that's arguable is whether or not it's just a coincidence that Kim would also want that.